WHY SHUFFLEBOARD
The easy answer is, it’s FUN.
It’s also easy to play. It’s easy to play while enjoying a cocktail. It’s competitive if you want it to be, not if you don’t. It’s a game for the ages, and for players of any age. You won’t sweat. You do it one-handed (just grip your tang and slide that biscuit!). It’s fast-paced. You can wear shorts. You only have to count to 75.
They say shuffleboard takes 2 minutes to learn and a lifetime to master. And that’s not taking into account your cocktail consumption. Still, it’s pretty hard to be bad at shuffleboard and pretty hard not to have fun. Impossible shots could be just a biscuit slide away.
We can thank the Baby Boomer generation for the birth and eventual explosion of “family entertainment" options in the 50's. Bowling, miniature golf, ping pong, roller rinks, little league baseball, pinball, Pop Warner football, drive-in movies, street hoops, hula hoops, whiffle ball, frisbee, marbles, swimming pools, croquet, bicycles, and yes, shuffleboard.
And while shuffleboard, like all things, rode a roller coaster of popularity over the decades, its simplistic fun, social compatibility, and skill level for all ages is again bathing in retro glory.
What the Big Lebowski did for bowling, Happy Gilmore did for golf, and Guardians of the Galaxy did for mix tapes, Larks is doing for shuffleboard. It’s about time.